The Anti-Sam Rainsy Law

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

[Vietnamization: "Yuon", Propaganda, Language] Want to Make a Lie Seem True? Say It Again. And Again. And Again

"...Yuon, a term for Vietnamese most consider derogatory" -- despite the
fact:

(1) the term is neutral;

(2) has only been propagandized to be
"racist" during the Vietnamese occupation;

(3) many Cambodian scholars
and leaders have formally responded to its neutral meaning, reminding us
all the distinction between what is "politically correct" and what is
"offensive" (derogatory);

(4) it is the same term Yuon / Yuan that the
Thai have for Vietnamese but it's a non-issue there as it
should be a non-issue anywhere;

(5) only written "most consider
derogatory" a stock phrase in the English-language papers -- mainly
written, all edited by non-Cambodians AFTER OCCUPATION; the use of the
term was never or rarely called out as "derogatory" prior to occupation; and

(6) whereas "most" Cambodians do not consider it derogatory, save the
CPP for obvious reasons and the one or two non-CPP loners because they
want to be politically correct with their foreign friends and
interviewers.

All speak to foreign hubris, particularly this last one
dismissing the bulk of the Cambodian population and giving credence only
to themselves the guests

You only use 10 percent of
your brain. Eating carrots improves your eyesight. Vitamin C cures the
common cold. Crime in the United States is at an all-time high.

None of those things are true.

But the facts don’t actually matter: People repeat them so often that
you believe them. Welcome to the “illusory truth effect,” a glitch in
the human psyche that equates repetition with truth. Marketers and
politicians are masters of manipulating this particular cognitive
bias—which perhaps you have become more familiar with lately.

President Trump is a “great businessman,” he says over and over again. Someevidence
suggests that might not be true. Or look at just this week, when the
president signed three executive orders designed to stop what he
describes—over and over again—as high levels of violence against law
enforcement in America. Sounds important, right? But such crimes are at
their lowest rates in decades, as are most violent crimes in the US. Not exactly, as the president would have it, “American carnage.”

“President Trump intends to build task forces to investigate and stop
national trends that don’t exist,” says Jeffery Robinson, deputy legal
director of the American Civil Liberties Union. He’s right that the
trends aren’t real, of course. But some number of people still believe
it. Every time the president tweets or says something untrue,
fact-checkers race to point out the falsehood—to little effect. A Pew Research poll
last fall found 57 percent of presidential election voters believed
crime across the US had gotten worse since 2008, despite FBI data
showing it had fallen by about 20 percent.

So what’s going on here? “Repetition makes things seem more
plausible,”says Lynn Hasher, a psychologist at the University of
Toronto whose research team first noticed the effect in the 1970s. “And
the effect is likely more powerful when people are tired or distracted
by other information.” So … 2017, basically.

Brain Feels

Remember those “Head On! Apply Directly to the Forehead!” commercials?
That’s the illusory truth effect in action. The ads repeated the phrase
so much so that people found themselves at the drugstore staring at a
glue-stick-like contraption thinking, “Apply directly to MY forehead!”
The question of whether it actually alleviates pain gets smothered by a
combination of tagline bludgeoning and tension headache.

Repetition is what makes fake news work, too, as researchers at Central Washington University pointed out in a study
way back in 2012 before the term was everywhere. It’s also a staple of
political propaganda. It’s why flacks feed politicians and CEOs sound
bites that they can say over and over again. Not to go all Godwin’s Law
on you, but even Adolf Hitler knew about the technique. “Slogans should
be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to
grasp the idea,” he wrote in Mein Kampf.

The effect works because when people attempt to assess truth they
rely on two things: whether the information jibes with their
understanding, and whether it feels familiar. The first condition is
logical: People compare new information with what they already know to
be true and consider the credibility of both sources. But researchers have found
that familiarity can trump rationality—so much so that hearing over and
over again that a certain fact is wrong can have a paradoxical effect.
It’s so familiar that it starts to feel right.

“When you see the fact for the second time it’s much easier to
process—you read it more quickly, you understand it more fluently,” says
Vanderbilt University psychologist Lisa Fazio. “Our brain interprets
that fluency as a signal for something being true”—Whether it’s true or
not. In other words, rationality can be hard. It takes work. Your busy
brain is often more comfortable running on feeling.

You are busy, too, so let me get back to Trump’s latest executive
orders, which are mostly symbolic. They certify that the government will
do what it can to keep law enforcement officers safe. They contain
vague language that civil rights advocates worry could lead to the
criminalization of protest. But while perhaps unnecessary, the orders
are hardly pointless—they reinforce the idea that America is unsafe,
that law enforcement officers are at risk, that the country needs a
strong “law and order” president. Data be damned.

As with any cognitive bias, the best way not to fall prey to it is to know it exists. If you read something that just feels right, but you don’t know why, take notice. Look into it. Check the data. If that sounds like too much work, well, facts are fun.

Declassified CIA documents

Sam Rainsy

Note from Hengsoy Jr.

We, Heng Soy's family and friends, are as dedicated as ever to continue his legacy of publishing sensitive information about Cambodia.

Ethnocide: destruction of a culture

For 10 years, the Vietnamese tried to apply to Cambodia a policy of ethnocide, insidiously carried out in the educational domain.... [T]he curriculum was based on that of Vietnam.... "Even schools' names come from Vietnamese"

Disputed Cambodia’s territorial waters

Facing Genocide

Award-winning film is a search into the personality of Khieu Samphan, meetings with him one and half year before his arrest (Khmer / French with English subtitles)

HRW report - DRAGGED AND BEATEN

The Cambodian Government’s Role in the October 2015 Attack on Opposition Politicians

Sam Rainsy's CV ប្រវត្តិរូប លោក សម រង្សីុ

(ខេមរភាសា / English) Leadership Cambodians desire, deserve

30 Years of Hun Sen

75-page report by Human Rights Watch, Jan. 2015

Reminder from Heng Soy (founder of KI Media)

Truth2Power (T2P) Media [formerly KI Media] loves to hear from you, and we're giving you a bullhorn. We just ask that you keep things civil. Please leave out personal attacks, do not use profanity, ethnic or racial slurs, or take shots at anyone's sexual orientation or religion. We thank you for your cooperation!

Concerts for the People of Kampuchea

On Dec 26-29, 1979 [by now, Cambodia under one full year of Vietnamese occupation], the musician Paul McCartney and Kurt Waldheim, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, organized a four-night benefit

Vietnam Invasion of Kampuchea (2 of 5, Film in English)

'The Vietnamese boasted, "The situation in Kampuchea is irreversible." ...the Vietnamese had installed a government of their own choosing. The figurehead were former Khmer Rouge... The Pol Pot regime had ended. But the worse was still not over... hundreds of thousands died during two long years of famine.'

Welcome to The Harvard Classics

Speak Truth to Power

A WORLD SAFE FOR DIVERSITY

Punctuation is Key to Development

Compare these two versions of Khmer article: Original vs. With Punctuation

Fair Trial Rights Handbook

In both Khmer and English

How chronic stress affects your brain

TED-Ed: How chronic stress can affect the brain's size, structure, and how it functions

Trauma Handbook

In both Khmer and English

Time for Truth

Os Guinness at Stanford Univ.

Is Tolerance Intolerant?

Pursuing the Climate of Acceptance and Inclusion - Ravi Zacharias at UCLA

Gene Sharp

From Dictatorship to Democracy, in English, other languages, free downloading

Gene Sharp

From Dictatorship to Democracy (Khmer translated by Mr. Ung Bun Ang)

UDHR

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, punctuated Khmer

Proverbs

Punctuated Khmer

Elizabeth Becker

Luke

ដំណឹងល្អ រៀបរៀង ដោយលូកា (Punctuated Khmer)

Sam Rainsy

My Struggle for Democracy in Cambodia

MIRACLES: Is Belief in Supernatural Irrational?

Standing ovation for this witty, illuminating, educational talk of Oxford prof. John Lennox at Harvard Univ.

Theary Seng

Rithy Panh

Pin Yathay

Nic Dunlop

How To Make Your Kids Smarter

10 Steps Backed By Science

KramaNation

KI Media family in KramaNation

ប្រវត្តិសាស្ត្រ ប្រទេស កម្ពុជា | History Series

សម រង្ស៊ី / Sam Rainsy: ខ្ញុំ សូម លាតត្រដាង ប្រវត្តិសាស្ត្រ ប្រទេស កម្ពុជា មួយរយៈកាល (ពីឆ្នាំ ១៩៥១ ដល់ឆ្នាំ ១៩៩១) ដែលគេ បិទបាំង មិនឲ្យ ប្រជារាស្ត្រខ្មែរ បានដឹង។ I would like to expose a period of Cambodia's history (from 1951 to 1991) that has been hidden to the Cambodian people.

REPEAT OFFENDER: Vietnam's Persistent Trade in Illegal Timber

Report of London-based Environmental Investigation Agency, May 2017

GRAND CONCESSIONS

Vietnamese People's Army has quietly assumed control of nearly 40,000 hectares of land in Ratanakkiri (Cambodia Daily, 24 Dec. 2015)

Global Witness: Rubber Barons

How Vietnamese companies and international financiers are driving a land grabbing crisis in Cambodia and Laos

K-5 GENOCIDE, 1981-88

The Vietnamization of Cambodia: A New Model of Colonialism

A series of exposes that Indochina Report has published on the Vietnamization process. Others in the series: "The Military Occupation of Kampuchea" (1985), "Vietnamized Cambodia: A Silent Ethnocide" by Marie Alexandrine Martin (1986). and "Daily Life in Cambodia: A Personal Account" by Dr. Esmeralda Luciolli (1988)

Vietnamization: Airlines, Airspace

Cambodia Angkor Air, "golden route" over Cambodian airspace

Cambodia's Family Tree

Global Witness Report: Cambodia is run by a kleptocratic elite that generates much of its wealth via the seizure of public assets, particularly natural resources.

The Economist explains economics

The Economist explains” 6 seminal economics ideas.

Who Killed Chea Vichea?

The Peabody Award-winning film in both KHMER and English. More at www.whokilledcheavichea.com.

I Am Chut Wutty

Banned in Cambodia, documentary film about murdered environmental activist by govt security